Stop me if you’ve heard this one before- Today could determine Erik Karlsson’s future with the Ottawa Senators.
Despite all the talk, we’ve made it through Trade Deadline Day and the NHL Draft and Karlsson is still a member of the Senators. Yet you sort of get the sense there is one final and major hurdle left to clear.
July 1st.
It’s a day we’ve all had circled on the calendar for weeks. Maybe even months. And not just because we love this gosh darn country of ours.
Today at noon, Erik Karlsson is officially eligible to sign an extension on his current contract. Based on all the speculation leading up to this day, it sounds like Pierre Dorion and the Senators plan to make him a legitimate offer too.
Over the summer, there was talk that the team was prepared to make him an eight year offer worth a total of $80 million. It that’s true, it would have made Karlsson the highest paid defenceman in the game. Now of course the landscape has shifted a bit since then with Drew Doughty apparently agreeing to an 8 year deal at $11 mil per.
Hard to imagine Karlsson agreeing to a deal worth less than that at this point.
Just like the trade deadline and the draft, there is no real pressure for the Senators to deal with the situation today, despite the best wishes of the good folks at TSN.
To this point, the trade offers on Karlsson have not been good enough and there’s no reason for the organization to adjust their asking price. It will be up to the teams with a legitimate interest to up the ante.
If Karlsson isn’t interested in the offer the Senators make today and if the trade proposals from other teams fall short, Dorion has to be prepared to sit tight. To have Karlsson return to Ottawa on the final year of his deal.
There was talk yesterday that the Vegas Golden Knights were still in hot pursuit. It sounds like the Tampa Bay Lightning may still be lurking too.
One thing that is clear about the Karlsson situation to this point, is Pierre Dorion has a lot of insiders guessing in terms of he’ll handle this. Twice now we’ve heard that Karlsson was certainly going to be traded and twice now, the day came and went without any movement. And that is certainly a possibility again today.
Karlsson isn’t the only ball Dorion will be juggling this afternoon.
Once the clock strikes noon, free agency opens up around the National Hockey League.
The Senators haven’t really been a big player in the free agent market for years and that’s not expected to change today. Although they have been loosely linked to both Tobias Reider and defenceman Calvin de Haan. That may give us a sense of the type of player they’ll be shopping for this summer.
Matt Duchene is also eligible to sign an extension as of today at noon, by the way.
Could be a wild day in the Nation’s Capital. One that might include the team’s Captain and franchise player heading out of town. Sigh.
Updates will be posted both at the top of this post and in the comment section below.
Happy Canada Day everyone!
